Smith helps readers navigate 'Mountains and Rivers'

Fans of poet Gary Snyder may have felt slightly intimidated when "Mountains
and Rivers Without End" was published in 1996. After all, this was the
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's personal epic, 150 pages of poetic text
written in pieces over 40 years.

To read his work appreciatively, it would help to know something about
Snyder's life and its influences, which are myriad: Zen Buddhism, poetry,
environmental philosophy, East Asian art, Japanese Noh drama, the Beats, the
Pacific Northwest and Northern California, to name but a few.

Eric Todd Smith accepted this challenge. Smith, 32, came to UC Davis five
years ago to earn a Ph.D. He chose Davis, in part, because Snyder teaches
here in the spring.

"We read the 'Mountains and Rivers' manuscript in the first seminar I took
with him," said Smith. "That's how I got interested in the poem." Smith
earned his doctorate on literature of place last September. The last chapter
of his dissertation discusses "Mountains and Rivers."

Sean O'Grady, a graduate of Davis, asked Smith to write a monograph on
Snyder's work for the Western Writers Series published by Boise State
University.

"I thought it was a neat opportunity given my experience and observations,"
said Smith. The result is "Reading Gary Snyder's 'Mountains and Rivers
Without End'," a paperback companion piece at $5.95 (available in Davis at
Bogey's Books downtown).

The obvious question is: Did Snyder approve of Smith's explanations?

"Apparently he did, because I know he's sent copies to people who are doing
translations of the poem," said Smith.

"There's certainly a lot left to be said about 'Mountains and Rivers,' but
hopefully this little book will help those who want to explore the poem
further," he added.

Smith's interest in the mystery of human attachment to place developed in
college. He grew up in Oregon, attending University of Oregon in Eugene.

"I went to France my junior year," he said. He was not prepared for how much
he'd miss the American West.

"When I came back I had the desire to travel and hike throughout Oregon and
find out where everything was and pay attention to the things around me. I
spent as much time as possible outdoors my senior year," he said. He also
began reading nature writers like Henry David Thoreau, Barry Lopez, John
McPhee and Wendell Berry. After earning a master's degree at Eugene, he and
his wife, Alice, came to Davis. What a shock.

Davis didn't conform to his mental picture of California or his own
experiences of place in the West.

Smith writes about his introduction to Davis and his attempts to get to know
the landscape in an essay called "Leaving Behind Your Flashlight" (the title
comes from a poem by Lew Welch).

This essay will be published this spring by the Putah Cache Bioregion
Project at UC Davis and it's well worth reading.

"It's about trying to figure out this new place in California. I drove
around the bioregion one day trying to search out the watersheds and ended
up getting lost and having no moment of truth. If you look too hard, you
won't find what you're looking for," he said.

Now Smith is looking for a teaching job and has had interviews at Boise
State and Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

He says literature of place is important because it's a testimony to the
kind of relationship that people often have with their physical,
environmental surroundings that they don't give voice to, particularly in
this age of globalization.

"People want local differences in their lives," he said. "The tension
between local and global interests need not be decried but need to be explored."

He says Snyder does this, too, in "Mountains and Rivers." Snyder explores
what globalization means beyond economics, in spiritual and ecological
terms. The book is in part a representation of the Beat spirit but it's also
about leaving the life of frenzied traveling and searching behind and coming
back to and committing to a special place rather than the next stop on the
road.

"You could say that Gary has written a cosmic travel narrative," says Smith.

In Snyder's case, the place he has called home since 1970 is the watershed
of the South Yuba River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Northern
California.

And in Smith's case, it's fair to say that while this area has been his
place, he's still looking.

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